Describe a “first day” in your life (first day of marriage, of school, etc).
I wanted to write a story a la “first day of the rest of your life” but that first suggestion hasn’t left my head so you’re getting an anecdotal tale tonight about my first 24 hours being married.
Weddings are a lot of fun (they’re a lot more fun when you aren’t the centerpiece, but I digress). Our wedding ceremony was on top of a mountain. It was breathtakingly beautiful. After the ceremony and the pronouncement that we were (finally) married, there were pictures to be taken. So many pictures. All of the pictures. And we only had about an hour to get them all done. My photographer was great though. She had the list of shots I sent her and we got through them all.
Then came the reception. My husband and I had had dance lessons and had our first dance choreographed as a surprise for all our guests. I had a wardrobe change. I couldn’t do the dance in my ballgown so I got a cocktail dress for the second act (continuing yesterday’s metaphors, sue me). We had a ball and our guests were entertained.
There were speeches. There was food. There were dances. There was cake. There were s’mores. There was so much mingling and meeting and greeting people. I still don’t know where the night went because I know I didn’t talk to everybody and before I knew it we were on the final dance number of the evening.
We drove an hour back to my hometown where my sister had gotten us a hotel room for the night. Our flight left early the next morning so we wanted to be closer to the airport than not. (The house we had rented for the wedding party over the weekend was almost 2 hours from the airport, staying in town made our drive that much shorter.) It was almost 11pm by the time we got checked in and settled, but we couldn’t sleep. We were still too amped up from all the excitement of the day. So we opened cards instead. It had to have been after 1 when we finally got some sleep.
Our alarm went off about 430. We planned to be on the road by 5 so we could get to the airport before 6. Our flight was a little before 8, I think. We got through security pretty quickly. There weren’t a heck of a lot of people flying out first thing on a Sunday morning, but we were glad we had the time to spare.
We flew from Albany to Baltimore, where we had a 3ish hour layover. We wandered around a bit until we finally decided to get breakfast at one of the bar and grills we passed by. I got an omelet with crab and tomatoes because when in Maryland… My husband might have actually had a burger, I don’t honestly remember but I feel like it was lunch food not breakfast food. And of course, since I was on my honeymoon and traveling, I got a mimosa with breakfast.
Finally, we boarded our flight to Jamaica. That portion of the flight was a bit longer and I think I took a nap for at least an hour of it. I got a lot of reading done on both flights out though. It took quite a while to get through customs at Montego Bay, but once we were through and had our luggage, we were directed to the resort’s lounge where we awaited our shuttle.
I connected to the airport wi-fi and discovered an email from our photographer. She had so much fun shooting us that she had already begun editing our photos and sent me a 10-shot preview. There was a black-and-white one of my mom and me getting ready before the ceremony that I immediately sent to her because I knew she would love it:
We didn’t have to wait at the lounge long before there were enough of us going to the resort to load up a shuttle. My first 24 hours of marriage had been a whirlwind that was one bumpy, windy mountain drive from slowing down for a few days. But it was all worth it because it was spent with the man I love.
Closet Full of Notebooks 